Not trying to be facetious here... "The society of free and accepted masons" members, aka "Freemasons" created and started using the word shortly after Freemasonry was created circa 1717.A few more curious things to consider are that the single word Freemason in use today was not transcribed in Anderson's Constitution of 1723 nor in Preston's 'Illustrations of Masonry' 1772.
Both writers either wrote Masons as a single word, Free-Masons as a double word, Free& Accepted Masons as a triple word.
There is no instance of 'Freemasons' appearing in these works.
Also, the last and puzzling observation on the subject is that 41yrs later after Preston's work, it wasn't even a single word used in the 'Declaration of the Act of Union in 1813' created between both Antients& Moderns.
So when did we begin to use the single word, Freemason?
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